WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — An activist who confessed to gunning down one of the only U.S. doctors to offer late-term abortions faces a sentence of life in prison after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder.
Jurors took just 37 minutes Friday to convict Scott Roeder for putting a .22-caliber gun to Dr. George Tiller’s forehead and pulling the trigger in the foyer of a church.
Roeder’s attorneys had hoped to argue for a lesser conviction of voluntary manslaughter, based on the defendant’s belief that the killing was justified to save the lives of unborn children. But the judge threw out that defense, leaving jurors to choose between a murder conviction or acquittal.
Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Mo., admitted his actions on the witness stand. Defense attorney Mark Rudy described his case as “helpless and hopeless.”
“I’ve never seen anyone lay himself out as much as Mr. Roeder did,” Rudy said after the verdict.
Prosecutors carefully sidestepped the abortion debate as they painted Roeder as a cold and careful killer who methodically planned his attack. But both sides of the abortion debate lined up to respond to the verdict.
